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Saturday, March 28, 2009

21st Century Thinking-My Blog Visits

Another round of great sites I've found that help me think about 21st Century "stuff". In no particular order. Just some posts that helped my personal thinking recently.

MEET ME AT THE CORNER is a great site for kid videos. I have been looking for videos that kids can study as "mentors" when they create their own. This site is full of not only kid-friendly videos,but videos made by kids, videos on how to make videos, and more. A great resource if you are thinking of movie-making with elementary students.

KIDS WHO THINK is a blog that I love. Fun weekly challenges invites kids to use their creativity. So many great ideas--Kids are sooo smart! I worry that we are missing this kind of learning in schools and this reminds me how critical these experiences are for kids.

Kip's post Time to Reflect was key to me in my thinking of how to infuse more technology into my days. The debrief and reflecting is key in our day and I worry that we are losing that in our hurry to "teach" things. I can see the share and debrief as the critical piece of a workshop with new tools. No matter what tools are available to students, the reflective share is key.

I am always intrigued by any new information about the Science Leadership Academy in Philadelphia. This articlewas recently posted which includes some interesting tours and thoughtful practices.

One of the posts that solidified some of my own thinking was from GENERATION YES BLOG titled "Educational Technology Doesn't Work". I continue to worry that anything on the computer is being tagged in the same category. For me, the key to quality instruction with 21st Century tools is about creation and information. Games and online worksheets cannot be put into the same category. But that seems to be what is happening in many cases.

"The process of integrating technology into our libraries and classroom spaces seems daunting at first, much like climbing a mountain or eating an elephant - but if we simplify the process, start small and work our way up and out, great things can and will happen."

5 comments:

Franki-GReat, great links. Thanks for the video link to Wooranna Park. I loved Kids Who Think but my what helped me most in my journey with tech is CArol's post on Integrating Tech One Byte at a time...small steps and collaboration.

I love to read your rounds Franki! So many ideas in one place, thanks for taking the time to do this. I wanted to let you know the link for Meet me at the Corner is not working...(an extra letter? a missing letter?) thought I let you know.

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Franki and Mary Lee are both teachers, and have been for more than 20 years.

Franki is a third grade teacher. She is also the author of Beyond Leveled Books (Stenhouse), Still Learning to Read (Stenhouse), Day-to-Day Assessment in the Reading Workshop (Scholastic) and The Joy of Planning (Choice Literacy). She is also a regular contributor to Choice Literacy.

Mary Lee is a fifth grade teacher. She is also the author of Reconsidering Read-Aloud (Stenhouse) and has poems in the Poetry Friday Anthology, the Poetry Friday Anthology for Middle School, and the Poetry Friday Anthology for Science (Pomelo Books).